Waiting in the Shadows

My heart is breaking …

I’ve waited so long ….

All these years… I’ve been faithful …

I’ve believed your words…

I’m no priest, just an old shepherd …

But as I have walked these hills…Your song has been in my heart…

Now, everyday my heart aches a little more…the music is almost gone …

Where are you? You Promised You would come.



Every morning I started my day with You…

I watched the sun You created…

Beat back the darkness of the night…

But no more…

The light of the dawn, no longer shines on the people of Bethlehem...

All we have is shadows…dark shadows…from the Herodian…the mountain of Herod.

When will our dark night end? Will it end when you come?



Do you remember what you told us through the prophet?

A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.

He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.

Edom will be conquered…

Seir, his enemy, will be conquered, but Israel will grow strong.
A ruler will come out of Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city.

We are your chosen people… the people of Jacob

But the promised star? It hasn’t risen.

The promised ruler? He’s never arrived.

Have you forgotten about us? Why haven’t you come.



Through Jeremiah you told us a day will come when you will do for us everything you have promised…

You said we will have a righteous king, descended from David…who will be just and fair…

You said we will live in safety. You even told us what our motto will be… 'The LORD is our righteousness!'

You promised we could count on you. You said the only way we could make you break your promise would be for us to stop the sun from rising and setting.

The sun rose this morning.

And tonight…I know it will set again.

No man has the power to stop the sun. So I know that your promises must still be true. But right now they don’t feel true inside.

If I can just hold onto hope…until you come.




Nothing is the way you said it would be.

Have you seen that mountain over there?

It hasn’t always been there…

It used to be a normal hill.

Then Herod came…and his men moved the earth and enlarged the hill …one bucketful of dirt at a time…

Until Herod turned the hill into a mountain…400 feet high…towering over us… blocking the sun.

In the top of the mountain he built his palace, his fortress…he set up his throne and he rules over us.

Where are you? You promised you would come.




Do you see these sheep surrounding me…grazing in the recently harvested field?

They follow the shepherd no matter where the shepherd goes. And that is how I have tried to follow you all these years.

These sheep are for the temple. One day they will be slaughtered and sacrificed.

Is that what’s going happen to us? Are we following you just to be destroyed?

You said that Edom would be conquered but they haven’t been. Instead we’ve been conquered.

And now Herod… the greatest Edomite that has ever lived…rules from the top of that mountain.

He holds all the power…and we…the descendents of Jacob…are absolutely powerless…

How can he be the ruler when you promised you would come?




Have you seen Herod’s wealth? Take all the money in our country…multiply it by 100…that’s how rich he is.

Have you heard? He’s a builder. One of the greatest in the world.

On the top of that mountain he has courtyards, gardens, cisterns, bathhouses, and towers.

See the swimming pool he built at the bottom of the mountain? It’s so big he uses boats to carry his guests to the island in the middle.

Do you know how powerful he is? He controls the world trade route and I’ve heard that even that the sea can’t stop him.

He built a man-made harbor…and a peninsula with a palace on it that stretches out into the Great Sea.

And out in the middle of the salt water…beside his palace…he has a fresh water pool…115 feet long and 60 feet wide.

As if that’s not enough…he has Masada…the fortress he built in middle of the desert.

It literally hangs off the side of a thirteen-hundred foot cliff. He’s like an eagle up there.

On top of that cliff he has hot and cold baths, storehouses, cisterns that hold millions of gallons of water, beautiful mosaics and even swimming pools….

No one can touch him.

He controls our Temple. He controls our priests. He killed his wife…he killed his sons…it is better to be his pig than his relative.

When he dies, he knows that no one will mourn him…so to fill our eyes with tears…the moment he dies…he has ordered some of our own people to be executed.

What is to become of us? Won’t you please, please, come?




We need our Deliverer. We need the promised Messiah.

Everything around us is upside-down.

Edom is on the throne…and he is so powerful…why have you waited too long?

700 years ago your prophet Micah said the true King would come out of Bethlehem…

And for seven hundred years Bethlehem has waited.

Am I to die waiting?

My father died waiting.

His father died waiting.

The father of his father died waiting.

And now Bethlehem sits in the Shadow of Herod…still waiting.

And yet you ask me to believe that you will keep your promise.

And I dare to believe that you will come.




I don’t know about you…but there have been times when I have felt like the old shepherd…nothing is the way it is supposed to be.

I look around and ask “Where are you…You promised you would come.”

Sometimes, even as Christians our hearts are breaking. We come to know the Lord…we learn his promises…and then sometimes things go exactly opposite of how we feel they should.

Sometimes it feels like we are all alone.

Psalm 61:1-4
Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.
From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.
I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.

No one told us when we came to know Jesus…that sometimes all of Hell would wage war against us. No one told us that there would be mountains.

Let’s be honest with each other…we’ve seen the mountains. The mountains are real…and sometimes it feels like they are winning. Everything seems the opposite of how it should be.

The mountains can have many different names…cancer, betrayal, poverty, illness, unanswered prayer, death of a loved one, unfairness, lonliness…

It can even be a mountain of no hope…

Where is he when someone we love gets sick and dies…they were a Christian…they loved the Lord…we prayed for them…they died anyway.

Yet we are still asked to believe his promises are true?

Where is he when children are dying in third world countries…he can fix it.
Isn’t he all powerful?

Where is he when a child is abused or killed? When an adult is murdered or attacked? When a Tsunami hits…or a hurricane destroys? Doesn’t he know what is going on?

We’ve all heard the explanation about free will and how God didn’t create us as puppets…but let’s be honest… that answer is less than satisfying…Why doesn’t he just come back…and end all this suffering?

Yet when everything looks upside down…we are still asked to believe his promises are true?

It’s in those times I find myself right there with the old Shepherd…

When will my dark night end…?”

“Has he forgotten me…?”

“If I can just hold on…?”

“Where is he…he promised he would come?”

The old shepherd had no way of knowing that day, that Jacob’s star was about to rise.

That right there…in the shadow of the Herodian…the Deliverer would come.

His name was Yeshua, Jesus, and within three miles of the Herodian…in a dark, smelly shepherd’s cave…

with a floor caked with hundreds of years worth of sheep manure…and a ceiling blackened by a thousand, thousand shepherd fires…Jesus would be born.

And even though the Deliverer had come…everything would still look upside-down…

How is a poor, helpless baby going to defeat a rich, powerful King.

Herod sat on his royal throne…Jesus slept in a cold, stone trough…used to feed and water sheep and goats.

Do you have any idea how much faith it took to believe that He was the promised Messiah…the one who would deliver them?

Yet Jesus’ life changed the world forever. So what about today…what about our mountains? Why doesn’t he just come take us away?

I don’t know all the answers…but I do know this… Peter tells us he’s not just out there somewhere, loitering…being delayed…being slow about his coming.

"With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

Peter says us that He is waiting to come back so that as many people can come to know Jesus as possible.

We live in a land of mountains for them…those who do not know him. He doesn’t want any of them to perish. It is His love for the lost sheep…that delays his coming.

Everything may look upside-down…as the mountains tower over us…as we wait for his return…but we do not stand alone.

Do we dare to believe his promises are true?

Through his death and resurrection he has conquered Death and Hell. Through our relationship with him…he has promised that death has lost its power over us…

when we die…we truly begin to live.

He has promised to be with us always. His presence…his fellowship…in spite of the mountains…is glorious.

Years after his birth, Jesus was probably walking near the Herodion when he told his disciples that faith as small as a mustard seed could move mountains.

I can just imagine them all looking at that man-made mountain. I can almost hear him saying...You know how Herod moved this mountain...well wait till you see what God can do.

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand...
"Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth;
You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills like chaff.
You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them;
You shall rejoice in the LORD, and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

"The poor and needy seek water, but there is none, their tongues fail for thirst.
I, the LORD, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
Isaiah 41:10,15-18

While we wait for his return we are to be like the old shepherd...we are to keep tending, feeding, watering and loving the sheep.

Many of us have grown up with a mountain overshadowing us. Many of us have grown up in a world that appears to be upside down. Whose shadow did you grow up under? When you stand in the shadow of the mountain...you do not stand in the mountains' shadow...you stand in God's shadow.

For God Almighty is standing on the mountain...and overshadowing the mountain...because he has conquered the mountain. Let his shade fall upon you...and let him lead your feet as the feet of a deer...to tread with Him on your high places.